Leica D Vario-Elmarit 14-50 mm f/2.8-3.5 Asph. Mega O.I.S. review - Vignetting

Have you rated your lenses yet?

Leica D Vario-Elmarit 14-50 mm f/2.8-3.5 Asph. Mega O.I.S.

24 September 2010

Arkadiusz Olech

8. Vignetting

In this category we deal with a slightly untypical situation. When it comes to kit zoom lenses, we usually see high vignetting at wide angle, low in the middle of the range and average at the long end. Meanwhile the Leica shows a noticeable vignetting in the whole range. It makes us draw a conclusion that this lens fares better than its competitors at wide angle but is comparable or even slightly worse in the middle and at the end of the range.

Leica D Vario-Elmarit 14-50 mm f/2.8-3.5 Asph. Mega O.I.S. - Vignetting

Passing to the concrete values we can say that at 14 mm and by f/2.8 the light fall-off in the frame corners amounted to 28% (-0.95 EV). On stopping down the aperture by one stop it decreased to 16%. By f/5.6 it was 12% and by f/8 it decreased to an imperceptible level of 10%.

Please Support Us

If you enjoy our reviews and articles, and you want us to continue our work please, support our website by donating through PayPal. The funds are going to be used for paying our editorial team, renting servers, and equipping our testing studio; only that way we will be able to continue providing you interesting content for free.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - advertisement - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

At 25 mm and by f/3.3 the vignetting increased to 22%(-0.72 EV) and on stopping down to f/4.0 it decreased to 18%. Only using f/5.6 made it imperceptibly low – 10%.

At 50 mm the situation looked similar. By f/3.5 the brightness loss in the frame corners we measured as 24% (-0.86 EV), by f/4.0 it amounted to 21% and by f/5.6 – to only 8%.